[solved] Q4OS install on an USB Drive failed during setting up Grub 2

bernhard · 2022-01-24 12:20

I tried to install Q4OS on USB from the latest Trinity life CD which I found on the Delug DVD published with the german Linux Magazin. I installed Q4OS to a 128GB GPT partitioned USB stick. I had created this USB stick quite some time ago for use with Siduction and made bootable with Refind. I have used successfully for some time, see https://forum.siduction.org/index.php?t … 9#msg57409 but got a bit frustrated by the huge number of updates, which were additionally sometimes problematic, but I wanted to preserve the /home partition for Q4OS, so I did not repartition it. The Q4OS installer went fine until the (final ?) step, where the installation tries to install/update grub (see attached screenshot), it failes in grub_install. Current state is: the stick does not boot Q4OS. I can start Grub 2 from the refind menu, but my knowledge of using Grub 2 comand line is insufficient to find/boot into Q4OS. With Grub legacy I might have been able to proceed, but Grub 2 command line is too different ...

Any help/tips are very welcome.

PS: On the main disk ist EndlessOS a flatpak/OSTree/Debian based Linux ...

Last edited by bernhard (2022-06-18 09:24)

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bernhard · 2022-01-31 12:12

does somebody know what grub2 stanzas should be used to start Q4OS?

Apparently the installer failed miserably to add the grub configuration. I could add these manualy, but I don't know what I should add.

To clarify the refind behaviour: Refind creates a boot menu for all Grub 2 instances it finds. There is an entry for Debian, but when I chose it, I end up on the Grub 2 command line using US-keymap with my German keyboard layout.

Last edited by bernhard (2022-01-31 16:46)

bernhard · 2022-02-01 11:58

having found the tutorial https://dai-trying.com/tutorials/instal … g-live-cd/ of Dai_trying in post #2 of https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2753 I tried to follow his instructions (as root):

TARGET=/mnt/sdb2
mkdir -p $TARGET
mount /dev/sdb2 $TARGET
mount /dev/sdb1 $TARGET/boot/efi
mount --bind /dev $TARGET/dev
mount --bind /dev/pts $TARGET/dev/pts
mount --bind /proc $TARGET/proc
mount --bind /sys $TARGET/sys
chroot $TARGET /bin/bash

root@localhost:/# grub-install

but I got similar error messages as the Python installer:

Installing for x86_64-efi platform.
grub-install: warning: Cannot set EFI variable Boot0002.
grub-install: warning: vars_set_variable: write() failed: Interrupted system call.
grub-install: warning: _efi_set_variable_mode: ops->set_variable() failed: No such file or directory.
grub-install: error: failed to register the EFI boot entry: No such file or directory.

any ideas?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- edit ------
PS: if I replace

root@localhost:/# grub-install

with

root@localhost:/# grub-install --removable

the installation works, see below, post #7

Last edited by bernhard (2024-11-04 18:33)

Tolkem · 2022-02-01 14:49

Siduction is based on Debian sid/unstable, whereas Q4OS is based on bullseye/stable, not a 100% sure since I've never done what you did, but you might've found some incompatible libraries there.

Last edited by Tolkem (2022-02-02 03:50)

bernhard · 2022-02-01 15:49

> Siduction is based on Debian sid/unstable, whereas Q4OS is based on bullseye/unstable

hmm, correct, but there is nothing left from the Siduction installation, the partition where it was installed is overwritten by the Q4OS installation. The commands noted above above (including chroot) where done when booted to EndlessOS 4.0.2, which is also Debian bullseye based and resides on the main disk. Q4OS (and previously Siduction) reside on the USB Stick. I see (in /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/) several Boot002 variables postpendend with some hex stuff similar to uuid strings, but modifying them is beyond my scope. When booted with the USB stick unplugged, I see only one Boot0002-hex-string entry.

Last edited by bernhard (2022-02-02 22:55)

bernhard · 2022-02-03 12:36

Additional finding: Before the attempt to install Q4OS (on January,10th, 2022, see the diagnostic file at the Q$OS forum, which I uploaded at 10-Jan-2022, lines 12023ff) there was no trace of any Boot0002-... variable. At that time I had not tried to boot the USB stick with siduction for a long time (at least half a year). I am tempted to delete the Boot002-... variables, but I am afraid to corrupt the whole setup.

To clarify: I do not want to have Q4OS added permanently to my my boot configuration, but I want to have access to it by inserting the USB stick and hitting F12 during reboot for getting the boot menu and selecting the USB stick. Then it enters the rEFInd boot manager (that works ok), but after selecting the Debian logo in rEFInd an empty Grub-2 config starts up ...

Last edited by bernhard (2022-02-03 13:16)

bernhard · 2022-04-01 15:20

finally I was able to solve the Problem: after replacing in post #3 (see above) the line

# grub-install

with

# grub-install --removable

the installation succeeded flawlessly.

Last edited by bernhard (2022-07-29 10:48)

q4osteam · 2022-04-01 17:39

Thanks for sharing the solution.

Q4OS Forum

#1 2022-01-24 12:20

[solved] Q4OS install on an USB Drive failed during setting up Grub 2

#2 2022-01-31 12:12

Re: [solved] Q4OS install on an USB Drive failed during setting up Grub 2

#3 2022-02-01 11:58

Re: [solved] Q4OS install on an USB Drive failed during setting up Grub 2

#4 2022-02-01 14:49

Re: [solved] Q4OS install on an USB Drive failed during setting up Grub 2

#5 2022-02-01 15:49

Re: [solved] Q4OS install on an USB Drive failed during setting up Grub 2

#6 2022-02-03 12:36

Re: [solved] Q4OS install on an USB Drive failed during setting up Grub 2

#7 2022-04-01 15:20

Re: [solved] Q4OS install on an USB Drive failed during setting up Grub 2

#8 2022-04-01 17:39

Re: [solved] Q4OS install on an USB Drive failed during setting up Grub 2

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